Polymeric yarns and fibers can offer many desirable characteristics in a wide variety of applications. For example, they can possess good mechanical qualities such as modulus, they can be resistant to degradation and erosion, and the raw materials can be easy to obtain as well as fairly inexpensive. As such, monofilament fibers, tapes, and yarns have been formed from various polyolefins such as polypropylene, polyethylene, and polyesters. These materials have found use in many industries, including medical industries, for example as suture material, filtration material, and the like, and in textiles, for instance as carpet backing material and in the formation of geotextiles.
Industries which encompass formation of structures requiring long term strength and stability, such as the construction industry for example, have also begun to take advantage of the benefits of polymeric fibers, and in particular, polypropylene-containing fibers. For instance, the construction industry has increasingly recognized the benefits of using such materials as reinforcement for various structural matrix materials such as concrete, asphalt, adhesives, other polymers, and elastomeric materials, to name just a few. Particularly in those fields which in the past have utilized steel reinforcement materials, polymeric reinforcement materials are increasingly becoming more attractive due to the ever-increasing costs associated with steel.
Attempts have been made to improve the reinforcement capability of fibrous polymeric materials through chemical methods, e.g., formation of particular polymeric blends, as well as through physical methods, such as by forming the fibers to have particular cross-sectional shapes or particular longitudinal shapes incorporating hooks, fibrillations, curves, and the like to better anchor the reinforcement fibers within the matrix.
While there have been improvements in fiber formation processes as well as in the formed polymeric materials and the composite materials incorporating the fibrous polymeric materials, there remains room for further improvement and variation within the art.